Transforming Your Business with BYOD Policies

Jonathan Erwin

Transforming Your Business with BYOD Policies

The “Bring Your Own” revolution is in full swing. From BYOB restaurants to bring-your-own-bag grocery stores, bring-your-own-beamer (projector) art shows and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) businesses, there is a paradigm shift in how companies create happiness and value for both employees and customers.

Executives who understand and leverage this trend can transform their entire organization. With BYOD policies in particular, executives can boost morale and productivity, streamline communications and cut IT costs. Here’s how:

1. Use BYOD policies to boost morale and productivity

BYOD policies allow employees to bring their own laptops, smartphones and tablets into a work environment for job-related tasks. This freedom is a powerful morale booster the workforce.

Device freedom gives employees choice, value and social connectivity. To the extent that personal style is highly variable and specific to each individual, smart devices are now personalized to the style, taste and needs of individuals.

Mobile device users now curate a collection of apps to sync files and calendars, scan business cards and documents or take notes and voice recordings on the move. These processes boost efficiency, organization and overall effectiveness. Today, mobile sales professionals and travelling consultants might feel lost without their mobile toolset, and no two toolsets are exactly alike.

Thus, companies empower employees with device freedom. Using their own devices, employees feel more connected to people both inside and outside the business, and they do not feel patronized or limited by the digital policies of their organization.

Psychologically, people enjoy using their own device for the same reason restaurant patrons enjoy bringing their own bottle of wine to a fine restaurant: they already own it, it was their choice and they believe they picked the best value option.

2. Create community and dialogue in non-desk environments

If you work in front of a computer, you might question why employees need to feel more digitally connected to their business. Wouldn’t life be nice if no one could reach your BlackBerry after 6 pm?

Here’s the reality: over 60 percent of the American workforce is in hourly, non-desk jobs. The overwhelming majority never receive a corporate email address or any way to connect digitally with their organization. Healthcare professionals, waiters, chefs, retail associates, industrial workers and non-profit volunteers cannot access computers often. Because they cannot send or receive communications easily, or doing so is a violation of corporate policy, they feel disconnected and alienated at times. Corporations also lose productivity without an efficient system for communicating operational changes, emergencies and other key messaging.

For organizations of all sizes, mobile devices are an obvious and accessible channel for internal communications.

This year, the Pew Research Center found that 91% of Americans have cell phones and 56% have smartphones. The infrastructure for connectivity and dialogue is already in place and growing.  For employees with mobile phones yet no corporate email, the chance to connect with their organization via mobile devices is appreciated.

3.Save Your IT Budget

According to Computer World, global mobile device spending in IT departments is projected to top $431 billion in 2013. This is a lot to spend on devices that most employees already own.

A company smartphone or tablet may be an employee’s second or third device, and it may be a lower quality, less customizable device.

Security typically drives organizations to purchase company devices. Some IT departments believe that standard communications are easily hacked and mobile devices will be used to leak sensitive corporate communications.

A wide array of mobile solutions, however, now address mobile security concerns. Appsnow letmanagement deliver and receive encrypted communications, automate messaging, delegate communication privileges and track read rates, among other capabilities. IT does not have to spend a fortune safeguarding communications.

The key is to recognize that BYOD belongs to category of workplace policies that appeal especially to Millennials and rising generations that live a highly mobile and digital life. If BYOD policies can transform an organization, surely there are more opportunities to create choice, value and connectivity in a corporate environment. Bring your own perspective to this question, and look at BYO values as a compass for deeper organizational transformation.


About the Author

Jonathan has crafted great success throughout his 20+ years in sales, marketing, and executive roles. He carries over his desire to succeed into leading the charge at Red e App. As CEO and founder, his creative vision has come to fruition and is fulfilling its mission to help customers engage employees more effectively through mobile communication. In less than 2 years, Jonathan has given life to a solution that will allow the communication woes of most enterprise businesses, surrounded himself with passionate teammates possessing equal desire, and continues to get the world Red e for greater communication efficiency.